The NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project is hosting a discussion, "'High Levels of Madness': The Fight for LGBTQ Inclusion at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade," via Zoom tomorrow evening, October 29, at 6:30 pm EDT.
The St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Fifth Avenue is the most significant expression of Irish culture and celebration in New York City.
But for 25 years, beginning in 1991, the fight for LGBTQ participation was met, in the words of Father Mychal Judge, with "high levels of madness."
On Tuesday evening, Irish gay activist and filmmaker Brendan Fay will be featured in an intergenerational talk with Irish American historian Emma Quinn about the decades-long campaign and the importance of Irish LGBTQ visibility in St. Patrick’s Day celebrations around the city.
Amanda Davis from the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project will moderate and there will be time for Q&A from the audience.
"'High Levels of Madness': The Fight for LGBTQ Inclusion at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade" is free to attend via Zoom, though advanced registration is required. You can RSVP online here.
Brendan Fay is an immigrant from Ireland and a long-time resident of Astoria, Queens, where he lives with his spouse, Tom Moulton. He is a human rights activist and filmmaker whose employment as a Catholic high school teacher in Queens was terminated in 1991 for marching with the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization (ILGO) at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Fifth Avenue.
For 25 years, the Irish LGBTQ group he founded, Lavender and Green Alliance - Muintir Aerach na hÉireann, fought alongside others for the right to march openly in the parade, a fight that ended successfully in 2016. During that time, Fay also founded the inclusive St. Pat’s for All Parade in Queens which will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2025.
"The story of the Irish LGBT group Lavender & Green Alliance and St. Pats For All is a story of rising up, overcoming exclusion and creating spaces of cultural inclusion," Fay said ahead of Tuesday's discussion.
"We were LGBT immigrants from Ireland. The New York St. Patrick’s Day parade is the biggest Irish cultural event. We said, 'We belong among our own.'
"After a 25-year struggle, on March 17, 2016, with tears and cheers of joy, we crossed the threshold from 48th Street to 5th Avenue with our Lavender and Green Alliance—Muintir Aerach na hÉireann banner. Hearts and history changed."
Brendan Fay.
Emma Quinn is Assistant Professor and Learning and Curricular Services Librarian at St. John’s University. She has an MA in Irish and Irish-American Studies from NYU and an MLIS from Long Island University. Her research interests lie in the history of gender and sexuality in the Irish Catholic diaspora, with a focus on New York, as well as inclusive and accessible pedagogy.
"As a queer child of Irish immigrants, I was drawn to this history as a way of understanding my own history," Quinn said.
"The battle for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade was a battle over what it means to be Irish or Irish-American, and the impact of the activists who worked so hard for acceptance can still be felt today."
Emma Quinn.
"'High Levels of Madness': The Fight for LGBTQ Inclusion at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade," a free, virtual program, is part of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project’s “The Historian & The Activist: Cross-Cultural LGBTQ New York” series, made possible by a grant from Humanities New York with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. It is the first in a three-part series; subsequent programs will address contemporary cross-cultural LGBTQ identities within Puerto Rican and Jewish communities, and their connections to historic sites in NYC from the 1950s to 2000.
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